Monthly Archives: January 2014

Consider this part 1 of a 2 part post. At the moment, I’m very busy with classes, as well as, my shifts in the Social Media Communications Center for this year’s Super Bowl. It’s been a great experience that I will share in a future post but for now, here are some cool links for you to check out and pick up a flavor for how it looks and the overall goals and objectives for the Center:

I was hit with a boatload of nostalgia this weekend as pretty much every major news outlet ran a story on the 30th Anniversary of Macintosh. I started my freshmen year in college with a Mac Plus and I thought I was cool because I ordered an external 3.5 floppy drive so I could run the program in one drive and save files to the external drive….cool. By my sophomore year, I bought a 20-megabyte external hard drive – it was so large, that the entire base of the Mac Plus, of which the Mac sat on top of, was the same size. I now carry around a 16-gigabyte flash drive that is smaller than my thumb and $2,400 less than what I paid for the Mac Plus.

Yesterday, Apple reported their financial results for last three months of 2013 and it was a record quarter for the company. Wall Street was not happy, but that’s nothing new as most traders have a pessimistic view of Apple. Apple did report sales of 4.84 million Macintosh computers in the last quarter, up 17% from the same quarter a year earlier.

In my eyes, that really amazing; how many products can think about that are 30 years old and are still relevant? Particularly in a category where innovation is as rapid as the tech industry; we are not talking about Coke or Pepsi here.

So if you searching for a little nostalgia or would like to learn a little history, here are some cool links:

News yesterday bouncing all around the blogosphere was that Sheryl Sandberg became a billionaire. Given the run Facebook’s stock has had over the past two quarters, it was only a matter of time. Sheryl’s current shares and stock options, as well as, Facebook’s current stock price makes Sheryl is one of the youngest female billionaires and only one of seventeen in the world.

Unfortunately, Sheryl becoming a billionaire was not the most interesting aspect of this news. In the middle of a story posted in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, this quote ran:

“Did she do a billion dollars-worth of work? I don’t know,” David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” a history of the company, said in a telephone interview. “She had the good fortune to land in the right place where her talents could really be applauded.”

Now if that is not a thinly veiled shot, I don’t know what one is. Perhaps John Gruber of Daring Fireball but it best:

“Would Kirkpatrick have asked this of a man? And if he had would Bloomberg have run the quote? I searched Google for the phrase ‘Did he do a billion dollars worth of work?’ and the only hit was this tweet from Jezebel editor-in-chief Jessica Coen, retweeting this tweet from Alex Leo pointing out the absurd gender bias in this article.”

Sheryl’s work is so cemented into the zeitgeist of Silicon Valley that often she is often used as a job title as in “I need to find myself a Sheryl Sandberg for my firm.” She earned the billion dollars, as Sheryl was vital in getting Facebook to where Facebook is today.

Today is all about the NFC and AFC championships but tomorrow, millions of fans will be planning their trip to our region to be part of Super Bowl XLVIII. The centerpiece of the fan experience will be Super Bowl Boulevard – 13 blocks from Herald Square to Times Square. Open from noon to 10PM daily starting Wednesday January 29th, Super Bowl Boulevard will feature a 60 foot high, 180 foot long Toboggan Run in the middle of Times Square, a pavilion with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the Huddle Shuttle and an autograph stage. If the Toboggan Run is not unique enough for you, the nightly LED outdoor Video Park (between 35th and 36th Streets) will be a total immersive sensory experience using the buildings up and down Broadway as screens.

The Super Bowl Host Committee along with the NFL prepared an excellent video showing the highlights of Super Bowl Boulevard – it can’t be missed.

For more information on all the Super Bowl XLVIII events and updates, visit www.nynjsuperbowl.com or follow them on Twitter @NYNJSuperBowl.

I hope the New Year has been treating everyone well and I hope we are sticking to our 2014 New Year resolutions.

Before I begin, I believe I owe the people of DigNuggetville an apology – or at the very least – an explanation; this is the LONGEST gap between posts in the two and a half-year history of DigNuggetville. One of my mantras (as posted multiple times) is Big Rocks First – a philosophy to prioritize the many things I juggle day in and day out. This philosophy forces me to think ahead and plan longer-term.

In November and December, I had rocks that were bigger than the blog (most noticeably – my tenure review and working with the 2014 NY/NJ Superbowl Host Committee). Moreover, I was totally spent at the end of the Fall semester and took time during the semester break to really rest up; I shut everything down to enjoy the time with the family.

2014 and the Spring semester is here and as usual, there are many exciting things to tackle. There is still much work to be done on the tenure front – the Social Media Communications Center will be in full swing starting Monday January 20th – and I have some interesting classes (Principles & Social Media – undergrad; Sales Management – MBA) this Spring semester.